


cold in loneliness, numb with vices, i keep fighting

by almanzil



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Body Horror, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, POV Stephen Strange, Psychological Horror, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Still Has Arc Reactor, Tony-centric, Torture, arc reactors are cool ok, how to tag??? idk im just tagging anything that comes up, i stg this is probably going to get 1 hit and .025 kudos lmao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-23 16:33:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17687063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almanzil/pseuds/almanzil
Summary: Half-destroyed and full of regrets, sorrows, and broken hearts, Tony knows it’s suicide, knows he’s helpless, struggling, but he’s weak and in pain and it doesn’t matter anymore if he lives or dies.





	1. screams that tear apart the night

**Author's Note:**

> uh like, let's just forget iw okay, except ironstrange cuz yes.
> 
> i haven't slept in like 2 days if there's errors it's cuz i wrote the first 4 sentences a couple of weeks ago and i wrote the rest legit 2 hours ago and proofread once. so yeah, sry about that

He's shoved to the floor.

Suddenly he's conscious again, jerked back to reality from the nothingness that had held him close just seconds before, the air knocked from his lungs. The floor is so cold, rough, damp. It meets his head with a sickly wet thud.

Pain and fog pulse through his head, dimming his perception. His chest screams agony. It's silent, he realizes, except for the quiet groan that escapes him and the heavy pounding of his heart. Fiery pain sears his heart, lungs, throat, everything - like red hot anvils were pressing to his chest. Tony's legs ache down to the bone. His shoulders sting so sharply that Tony checks to see if someone had shot needles into them.

A foot rests on Tony's hip and the idea that he isn’t alone suddenly struck him. His head is still spinning. Black frames his vision. Never did he expect to be in so much physical pain. He catches his name when someone says it in a blur of sentences, but he can’t decipher the context. _Tony Stark._ It’s his name. His.

Where the fuck is he? The fear companying the thought makes his stomach churn and burn. He tries to make out what his environment is through the haze clouding his brain and the darkness. It is dark, all shades of dark grays, and he thinks he spots some sort of stand and a device on top but the agony ripping through his neck restricts him from lifting his head to confirm. Ropes tie his arms to a straight, rigid board behind his back and his feet are bound. People are talking in a language Tony doesn't know. He catches his name several times.

The speaking stops abruptly, sending the place into a tense silence. Footsteps. Tony tries to twist his head to see his captors, but thousands of daggers stab into his neck when he tries. Tony bites his tongue to silence a cry and waits for the pain to subside enough for him to move. He didn't have any time beyond that thought to string it to a second one. A swift kick to the back of his head sends his world into darkness.

 

* * *

 

  
He awakes with a scream this time. Screaming because something is digging into his wrist with white-hot fury. His eyes jerk open and he sees someone holding down his arms while something burns into his wrists. He thrashes, but he's small and weak and hungry and in agony and his head is hazy and he wants to beg for someone, _anyone_ to rescue him. Trying to kick out proves worthless because something is holding his legs down, too. The guy holding his upper half down curses and shouts. Hands are pressing to his forearms. A gloved hand is resting on his wrist, but it wasn't forceful. He only knows he has to get out of here. He has no nanobots, he knows, so he has to fight tooth and nail.

He curves his back in the torment. Pain suddenly drowns away. All he can focus on is the blood roaring in his ears. His head is free, he knew. The agony that froze his neck before is gone, or maybe he just didn't feel it as he jolts up and digs his teeth into his captor's arm. It did the trick - they leap back, crying out in pain. Tony's bite broke the skin and red is trickling down his captor's arm, even if his teeth are now aching. The person burning his wrists scrambles away. They are calling in a language Tony doesn’t care to identify.

He surveys his wrist with a glance lasting a half-second. A tool had been dropped on the table he is laying on - it looks sort of like a hot glue gun, Tony thinks, except made of metals and hard, sharp ends. The end of the point is glowing red, and it had pierced Tony's wrist, turning the skin around the small puncture white (what is the purpose of that? Tony wonders dimly in the back of his mind). Rapidly, any sense of feeling around it is starting to shut off. Blood isn't even pouring out of it -  which must've meant that it was so hot the flesh had been cauterized and blocked the blood from flowing out. The realization and slam of nausea makes Tony feel like throwing up, but there is nothing in his stomach so all he lets out is a choked dry heave.

His two captors are arguing now. Tony grabs whatever the weapon they used on him was with his good arm, glaring at a crude rope bounding his legs to the table. At least one arm is still functioning. He seizes the burning device and burns through one of the ties, breaking away. Nothing catches on fire, thank god, but he still burns another few ropes before he can wiggle out. He is in a cave, now, he realizes.

One of his captors is on his back as soon as Tony's feet land on the ground again, and they’re bigger and heavier. The sudden rush of blood to his head didn’t help, and then he was back on the cold floor. The weight crushes him. He can barely feel his left hand. The hurt is slowly coming back. He cries out, one part in frustration and one part in suffering.

The second captor delivers a hard kick to Tony's face, and it’s black again.

 

* * *

 

 

This time he awakes in whimpers. He knows immediately his nose is broken and his lip is split.

He's alone. He knows because the only pain is residue from before, nothing new this time, the bone-deep aches and stings, and there are no voices even as he waits for one.

After what feels like an eternity, he experiments to see the capabilities of his already battered and bruised body. He feels a bit better; his neck moves with only a few dull stings. His wrist protests when he flexes his left fingers, and while it hurts his arm is usable.

He feels his face with his right arm. His nose is _definitely_ broken, and his lip has a large, painful split along with dozens of tiny ones from dryness. A thin crust of dried blood rests on his cheek.

His ARC Reactor glows in his chest, providing Tony’s only light. The housing unit for his nanobots is gone, and his shirt is torn where the Reactor rested. Scratches were swelling around it. Tony wonders if he had been the one clawing at it or if his captors had been the ones trying to rip it out of his chest.

He hopes it was him. Even if he can't remember, please him.

He’s free this time, but he wonders how long he’s been out. He checks his bare ankles and there’s only a few scratches from where the rope rubbed against the skin. Soreness dragged his muscles all over his body. He fought against it to stand up.

It’s a dark room, he knows, and it’s cold, and he’s wearing nothing but a sleeveless black shirt and black shorts that are some sizes too large. It makes him sick to think that someone changed his clothes while he was unconscious.

He tries to think to how he wound up here. Vague memories of loud noises and bright lights fill his head and- he got into a fight with Stephen, he remembers with a sharp stab of guilt. Oh, how he wishes his amygdala could just _break_ right then and there. It was a stupid, small, mundane thing they got into a fight over, and afterwards Tony left to a party to blow off some steam. Despite trying so hard to break his addiction, he had been offered a bottle of alcohol by an obscure face. Recklessness had always been part of his nature, so of course he took it, and of course the memories starting becoming hazy from there until waking up being tossed to the ground. Indistinctly, he outlines a girl, maybe, and bits of conversation too fuzzy and out of context for him to grasp a conversation out of them.

(His head is starting to hurt - he knows it’s a combination of lack of food, lack of water, and all the battery his head’s gotten. That’s probably part of the reason he can’t think properly, he reasons. He probably has a concussion, too. His head’s been hit too many times and too hard for him not to.)

He lays back down, groaning at the way the rocks of the floor dug into his back. He wishes he knew how long he’s been out. He tries to observe the burn puncture to see if he can get a grasp. How long did burns take to heal again…?

It doesn’t matter, he thinks with resentment. This is a third degree burn. He can tell from the charred skin around it and chalk white skin and the numbness around it and dull pain surrounding it like the rim of a circle. It isn’t as large as it could be - the puncture was probably about a centimeter wide - but it would still need more care than just leaving it to heal by itself, especially with nothing to cover it. This isn’t the first time he has had a burn before, but it was probably the first time it was so severe, not to mention the burning gun went further than just the skin.

He tries to count the seconds as they go by. He reaches seventeen minute and nine seconds before he’s snagged by thoughts of what his loved ones must be feeling.

What was Stephen feeling? If Tony had somehow been drugged or knocked out or whatever at that party, would Stephen be mad at himself for the fight? Tony hopes he wasn’t beating himself up. Stephen had always been subtle and cold to those he wasn’t quite warming up to yet. Emotional and mental pain wasn’t something you were supposed to deal with all by yourself if you valued your well-being - that was a lesson Tony had learned a very hard way, even if he was guilty of continuing it.

He hopes Stephen knows it wasn’t his fault.

What if they thinks he’s dead? Tony wishes he knew more of what happened, but thinking about it too hard made his headache worse. Feeling too hard, that made his heart hurt. He wishes he could tell everyone he was alive. But he remembers what J.A.R.V.I.S. said after he came back from the Ten Rings - the chances of his survival and return were at 0.03%, or some ridiculously tiny number like that. If Stephen sees that, no doubt he’s going to think Tony’s dead.

What about Pepper? Even if they had broken up, they were still close. Would she think he’s dead, too? And Happy? What about him? Peter- oh god, no, _Peter_. That boy had already lost enough in his life, he couldn’t lose Tony, too-

Tony bites his lip. Whatever happens, he has to get out as soon as possible. But no doubt, whoever his captors now are, they knew well enough what had happened during his time in the Ten Rings and how _that_ turned out.

On the edge of his senses, he hears footfalls approaching, and he manages to push himself to his feet, pushing himself into a corner like a scared animal. His captors, whoever they are, couldn’t get behind him if he was in a corner. Sure, he would have nowhere to run, but at least he wouldn’t be jumped.

A part of the wall pushes out like a door. Guns cock, aimed at Tony. Two lean guards stand at either side of a fat man that can only be described as an alcoholic caveman that has been in the mountains a few years too long. His eyes scan Tony’s small frame, making his skin crawl, and he gives Tony an unnerving smile.

“It’s an honor to finally meet you, Stark,” he says, in perfect English, with no trace of an accent. “You are going to reel in quite a fortune for us - if you survive the next few days, that is.”


	2. tired hero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so uh this was supposed to be out by monday but ive rewritten this like 7 times and this is the only time im happy with it
> 
> also i keep blacking out from my headaches lfjldjf sorry, i'll try to be quicker for chapt 3 especially since now i have a bit of a beat going

Tony looks the caveman up and down, examining the clean clothes and casual stance. The caveman is looking at him more like he’s Tony’s best friend rather than the head of his kidnappers. From how he is clearly the respected one, he was probably the leader, or at least one of higher standing.

He wants to ask an endless amount of questions, feeling like a trapped animal now as the caveman paces in front of him, watching him with beady blue eyes. He said “fortune”. . . if money is what they want, why Tony? Why not someone else? Someone who doesn’t have such significance to the world? ( _Unless they wanted him gone_. . _._ ) Someone who doesn’t have a bit of a history of being unable to be kept, especially unwilling? Questions float through his head, too fast and uncontrolled for him to know which one to ask.

Finally, he inquires, “So what’re you going to do with me? By  _'if you survive the next few days'_ , I’m not expecting rainbows and sunshine. Unless you mean drowning me in love and affection.”

The caveman smiles, unnerving. Tony doesn’t like that look - he’s seen it before, and it never meant anything good for him. Anticipation for what’s in store for him grips his chest like a vice.

“Oh, no worries, Stark,” he says. “If you are the man of iron you claim, you will make it out alive. Hopefully intact, as well.”

Tony’s fists clench. His captor is only talking about his physical well-being, not his mental or emotional one. Maybe he’ll walk out with a few cuts and bruises, a few scars, but he knows that he won’t walk out of here the same man. It’s no help that the people who’ve kept him sane his whole damn life were gone, too - Rhodey, Happy, Pepper, Stephen, Peter, hell even FRIDAY.

“I think you’ll be pleasantly disappointed at how well I’ll make it through,” he says with faux confidence. “The talk about me being hard to keep? Yeah, they don’t lie.”

“You’ll see we aren’t as foolish as them. You’re never escaping this place, Stark.”

The caveman leaves with that foreboding threat, and Tony watches him walk out. The door shuts, locks clicking on the other side, and the room becomes dark and quiet.

As soon as he confirms no footsteps are turning around, and he uses the light from his Reactor to make sure there are no shadows just outside, he feels around where the door blends into the wall. A thin carved outline tells him where the door is, but he can’t squeeze his fingers between it. There’s a slit on the floor, barely thicker than Tony’s hand. The room itself has no windows, no tables, beds, chairs, toilets, nothing. It’s rectangular, black, and silent, and Tony is alone. Completely alone this time; Yinsen wasn’t here to talk to him, show him the ropes, help him out. Just him.

He tries to distract himself by counting minutes. It works for only fifteen-ish minutes. Tony always had a type of energy coiled up inside of him, a desire to be doing something. A few stray pebbles help him at least move his hands a bit, and so does fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, but with nothing to build with the energy mounts. Anxiety slowly creeps in. He lays in the center, staring up and allowing his reality to be swallowed by thoughts.

Grimly, he wonders if this was how he was destined to die from the beginning - all by himself, surrounded by shadows and drowned by the swarm of his own thoughts. Tony’s life thus far hasn’t been half as charming as most people would think, even when they knew some details. He wouldn’t be surprised if he rotted away here.

He’s going to go crazy without something besides his thoughts and inner imagination to remind him he’s alive. How long has he been in here? He lost count, but it feels like years already. No, no, only a few hours have passed. Wait, hours? Is that right? This is what they want from him, he realizes. They want to drive him mad with white. Lack of sensory input was awful for humans, especially ones as hands-on as Tony. He’ll go crazy in here. Is their goal to get him to be so emotionally and mentally unhinged from white torture he’ll gladly be destroyed?

The pounding of his heart has become noise in his ears, but he likes having it there. Lying on the floor, he twists. Ever since he was little, he liked doing things to avoid stopping. But with nothing to do, he’s sure he’d rather be gurgling broken glass shards or tracking all forty-three quintillion different combinations of Rubik’s Cubes. Just something.

As the hours pass, the more anxious and paranoid Tony becomes. Yet it’s also exhausting to be running on fears. He thinks he starts blacking out, but he can’t tell the difference between the vaguely outlined gaps in his memories and when his mind simply goes blank from weariness before being slammed by a chaotic run of worries again. He feels like a small child locked in his room when his parents forgot about him during time out.

His circadian rhythm has probably gone to shit. If only he knew how long he’s been down there. Judging from the condition of his wounds, he couldn’t have been here for longer than a few weeks, at the most, and a few days at the least. He hopes it’s been a few days. The people who care about him (he hopes they do, at least) must be worried out of their minds. With a stab of longing, he wishes he was in a comfy, squishy couch, with Pepper and Happy and Stephen and Peter, wrapped in Iron Man-themed blankets, drinking hot chocolate and watching movies on his enormous TV. Regret fills him over all the things he did and didn’t do, all the things and people he misses.

Stephen’s gentle hands and deep voice instructing him on how to keep a healthy lifestyle and how it makes you feel better mentally and physically, extending the knowledge to Peter. Peter’s bubbly and cheerful personality mixed with a hint of nervousness and eagerness, his constant pop-culture references and unique ideas and rambles about Thor. Thor’s crushing bear hugs, optimistic and friendly character, and countless stories about Asgard and little things he brought back from the Nine Realms for Tony and Bruce to study. Bruce’s surplus of ideas, theories, and geek-outs, and his relatable existential crises and freak-outs over his seven PhDs meaning he had no real world skills. Pepper, with her quick tongue about kind interior and sturdy reliability. He even misses his light, playful bickering with FRIDAY or scolding Dum-E for being stupid.

Shuffling, the light from his Reactor catches on something in the top corner. A glinting piece of metal, Tony identifies. He shifts a bit more and outlines a rectangular shape, a cylindrical part jutting out. A camera. So they’re monitoring him, too. Watching him slowly go insane in his own pool of anxiety and paranoia.

He sits up and gives the camera a blank stare like he’s on an episode of The Office and someone just did something stupid. “Nonces,” he accuses, surprising himself with how loud his voice is to his own ears and the way it echoes, but nonetheless flipping them off and lying back down. So that’s how they came in almost as soon as he woke up - they have a monitor watching him.

If there’s a camera, there’s probably something else. Tony twists gently and scans the walls, ceiling, floor. His eyes catch on the wall. Where some of the rocks have fallen away - perhaps this cell has held more people before him and they damaged the interior? - small hints of metal peak through.

After a moment of consideration, Tony stands up. Blood rushes to his head, dizzying him for a bit and intensifying the headache he already has. Once steadier, slowly, he reaches towards a spot where his Reactor’s light glints off. His fingers brush metal, and all he knows is a blast of spasms and contractions and numbness all in a half second before it’s black again.

\----

“You really love making things difficult for us, huh?”

Tony groans as his eyes open, shutting immediately at the bright lights overhead. It takes him a few moments to register someone spoke to him. Another human being.

The voice is accented, but from how it sounds, the speaker is female and young. Tony shields his eyes as he waits for them to adjust. Sharp needle-like pain shoots through his entire arm. Whoever spoke to him is beside him and says, “Hey, careful. You don’t want to move your arms.” She grabs his arm as gently as possible and moves them to rest at his side.

“Where am I?” he rasps, off-set by how hoarse his own voice is. “I- what happened?”

“You touched an electric current,” the girl next to him says. “Zapped yourself unconscious immediately. Hey, no, don’t try to move. Here, I’ll turn off the lights.”

The room goes dark, but not as dark as the cell Tony was previously is. It’s dim, but it’s easier on his eyes. From his position on a table (not held down this time, thank god), he surveys the room. Medical supplies litter several tables messily, lights hanging overhead. There’s no windows, and the vent is too small even for him to crawl into. Only one door stands, closed. Nothing in this room is of the best quality, but it’s manageable.

The girl comes into view. She has waist-length black hair and gray eyes on her dark tan face. Her coat is white and she’s taking off her gloves. She smiles at him. Already she’s much friendlier than everyone else he’s met so far.

“That was a current?” Tony asks, coughing.

“Yeah. You have burns all over your arms.” Her smile falls, stealing glances at his arms. Tony follows her gaze, and resists the urge to groan at the bandages covering his arms from hands to shoulder. “But I’m really shocked - no pun intended. The intensity of the electrocution you got… it should’ve killed you, if not left you with third-degree burns all over your body. But it’s only on your arms and your torso. You mostly have two-degree burns, three-degree on where the current entered your body and where it exited. I don’t understand how, and I think I’m surprised, but I’m really not. You’re Tony Stark. You can do anything.”

Tony grins at the compliment, deciding he likes this girl (at least for the time being - wait till she dies or leaves him or betrays him. She could be doing this as an act to win his trust; stay on guard). He doesn’t tell her that the reason he’s so unharmed is because he tinkered with his own biology. “What’s your name?”

“Can’t tell you,” she admits sadly. “But if you want something to call me by, even if it isn't my real name, you can call me Anaagaka.”

“I’m just gonna call you Ana.” Tony closes his eyes again. “How long am I going to be here?”

“We aren’t too sure,” Ana says, pulling herself an office chair. “Normally, you’d be in here for a really long time, but with how little you’re damaged… we think maybe a few weeks?”

“How long have I been gone?”

“A week and a half. You electrocuted yourself yesterday morning.”

He’s lost less time than he feared, but it still makes him squirm. “Morning? How long was I in that cell?”

“I’m… not too sure,” Ana confesses. “But you were awake throughout the night. All night, except for some two minute gaps where you blacked out. It was weird and kind of frightening. You were extremely exhausted, you know? You should’ve blacked out for longer. But solitary like that is weird. It makes people weird. And you’re weird.”

“Thanks, I know. How’d I get here?”

“Like I said, you got zapp-”

“No, no. I mean, how’d I get here? I was just going to a party, and I didn’t even drink any alcohol or wine.”

Ana bites her lip. “I don’t think I can tell you that, I’m sorry.”

Tony grumbles. “Can I flop on my stomach? That’s so much comfier than my back.”

“Nah. Moving too much might aggravate your condition. Maybe your body is more resilient to shocks, but that doesn’t mean you should just batter yourself. Your condition is bad enough.”

“Oh, c’mon. I have to stare up at the ceiling all day?”

“I’m afraid so.” Ana scoots her seat to a sink, fills up a tall glass, and places a straw in it. Pulling herself back over, she places it to Tony’s lips. “You’ll need to drink a lot of water to get better.”

Tony sips it, allowing Ana to hold it for him. The water tastes weird to him, but he doesn’t complain to the sweet relief of liquid splashing down his throat. He whimpers when she scoots away again, checking something on a watch on her wrist.

“Why are you here?” Tony asks. “Working for them?”

Ana goes still and quiet. “Can’t tell you, sorry,” she says. “I gotta leave now. Feel better soon, Stark. Share your secrets about your cool resilience with me, too.” She sits up without waiting and hurries out, pausing after she shuts the door to lock about a dozen different locks.

Tony holds his breath, then sighs loudly. What he’d give to be able to lie on his front. He closes his eyes and stops himself from crying or screaming or giving up and tries to push it away, but he can’t.

He’s alone again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kudos, bookmarks, and comments are extremely appreciated <3 <3 <3 they're the only reason this chapt didn't just collect dust in my computer

**Author's Note:**

> if you guys can't tell i'm nervous as hell
> 
> kudos and comments are very much appreciated thank u, have a good day and know that ur bitch loki (me yes thats my name) loves you


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